Have you been following the news about the oil spill in the Gulf? It’s bad news, any way you look at it. Just because it’s not happening here in Anderson County doesn’t mean that it won’t affect you. The people in Spain didn’t think a volcano in Iceland would affect them either. This spill is an environmental disaster that will touch each and every one of us, as well as our children’s children.

It’s not what happens to you that’s important, it’s how you respond to it.

It’s a simple sentence my high school soccer coach told our team one day before practice. Standing around 5-foot-6 at the time, I wasn’t your prototypical goalkeeper. I was just a freshman and I had earned a starting spot on the varsity team at a high school with a rich soccer history.

Needless to say, I was terrified. It didn’t help my older brother was a senior, all-district captain. If there was one person who wasn’t afraid to chew into me, it was him.

Startled, I woke up in the middle of the night between Sunday and Monday. I’m not sure what I had been dreaming about, but in a sleepy haze I awoke thinking about two things: this week’s column and coping strategies.

More specifically, I was painfully aware that I still needed to write a column, and my dream must have been about dealing with something gone wrong, because the first few thoughts on my mind were how people deal with situations differently — how we all use different coping strategies.

My comments are directed toward Joan Burke’s guest column regarding the attacks by Christians on Facebook and what she calls the ranting by the Tea Movement.

Not sure where she has been on some of this because it appears she does not see or hear the same things many of us do. But on this part I would definitely agree with her, that no one should wish the president dead.

As I sit at my computer staring at the cursor blinking endlessly before my eyes, I wonder and agonize as to what my first column for The Anderson News should be about.

I covered the UK men’s basketball team last season for the University of Kentucky student newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel, how about a piece on my opinion of whether or not head coach John Calipari will leave for the NBA?

No, I don’t want to dive in to such a sensitive subject around the Bluegrass in my first meeting with you all.

First, a correction from last week’s column in which I lauded Sheila Mitchell for the next school superintendent.

Several folks caught a stupid mistake I made, and I’m grateful to them for pointing it out.

I said that if chosen, Mitchell would be the county’s first female school superintendent. Had my brain been in gear before making that claim, I would have recalled that Emma B. Ward — you know, the lady after which one of our elementary schools is named — held that distinction decades ago.

I read your comments in the last edition of The Anderson News regarding the truck and tractor pulls held at the county park. I understand the benefits to the community of holding events such as these in the county. However, there is a downside that you did not mention.

Welcome, May. The ducks are on the pond and the locust is in bloom. Spring really has sprung. I love to watch the trees leaf out and admire the hundreds of shades of green that end up painting the landscape. Out here in the country, we’ve got lots of trees, but some are growing purple boxes.

Rain fell at a steady pace in Lawrenceburg for nearly two days, and aside from the small stream that developed in my front yard, I escaped unscathed.

Though I saw the rain falling outside my window, it was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that some of my neighbors were flooded from their homes, watching the water pile up in their back yards from neighbors’ porches.

It seems that each time spring rolls around someone kicks the anthill that houses those who support a restaurant tax to promote tourism and sends them scurrying again all over town, looking for bread crumbs.

While I certainly don’t mind reprising my roll as chief exterminator and busting a fresh can of Raid, it’s good to know that there’s a man with a plan besides me willing to prove the folly of that tax.

Taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for ‘new’ county government offices

To the editor:

If county government’s intention of taking over the old Countryside Motors facility is in fact just rumor, our county officials now have good reason to call you out on it for your editorial. But if it is not, I believe a good number of our citizens may share my sentiments as follows: